Expanding your faith

As Christians we must continuously assess our level of faith because what we believe it becomes what we do and what we are.

The Bible teaches us that faith is a foundation:

Hebrews 11.6: And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

We must constantly work to have a level of faith that pleases God. We must work on expanding our faith.

How can we do that ?

We must enhance our sight

2 Kings 6. 15 -20

Gehazi, Elisha’s servant has two issues:

He has a problem with sight

He has a problem with memory

Our faith can be jeopardized by altered sight and memory.

Surrounded by the king of Aram’s army, Gehazi is unable to see God’s army by their side. What his natural eyes could see prevented him from seeing what his spiritual eyes should have seen.

Similarly, the king of Aram’s army could not handle the world around them because they were blind spiritually.

Being blind spiritually undermines how we see the world and people around us.

We may have sight, but we may not have vision.

“The eye doesn’t see. The brain sees. The eye just transmits. So what we see isn’t only determined by what comes through the eyes. What we see is affected by our memories, our feelings, and by what we’ve seen before”, from Humans of New York – Stories by Brandon Stanton.

Therefore what we see is rooted, embedded in our past experiences, our biases, and many other factors.

Gehazi had witnessed many miracles and great things Elisha had done. However he had forgotten.

Consequently he has a problem with memory.

We must choose what we will remember most. Our stories will become our history. We may have different stories but we may not make history. We must choose what stories we will keep and will influence us. Will we remember our failures or every time we have seen God at work and achieving great things ?

An example to follow :

Luke 2.19: But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

We must consistently and constantly keep and ponder what God is doing in our lives.

We must find specific and personal ways to never forget the miracles God worked into our lives. (See Deuteronomy 8 and 9, for instance)

We must do what we are called to do

Mark 2. 1- 12

Despite everything his friends had done for him, despite what Jesus had told him, the paralyzed man had to do something: get up and walk.

Nobody could do it for him. Feeling ridiculous, fearing not to be able to walk could have stopped him. But he dared to.

In all the miracles we see in the Bible, people have to do one thing no one else can do for them.

We are called to do things that will seem easy to others sometimes, but will represent a huge, thing for us.

The voice of faith is calling each and everyone of us to do something specific, genuine, special, personal that will benefit the environment, community, church God has placed us in.

“When no one gets your vision, it’s because God did not give it to them, God gave it to you”, motivational speaker Lisa Nichols.

When God calls us to do something specific, we need to protect the vision and do something with it.

A good way to protect the vision is to dwell into the gospel, into the Scriptures.

Joshua 1.1 – 18

Romans 10.17: Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

We must protect each other’s faith

Hebrews 3: 7 – 19

“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

We are in a spiritual battle in which the devil wants to kill our faith.

How does Satan attack our faith?

He attacks our identity and self-esteem

Pushes us to trade, to negotiate with sin

Makes us doubt of God’s presence and faithfulness as well as God’s power.

We need to have each other’s back to address Satan’s attacks.

A reason why we are together is to experience the greatness, the faithfulness, the grace, the love of God.

Who have we encouraged with our faith? Who has encouraged us with their faith?

Speaking about what God does is one of the most encouraging things.

To finish with,

Jesus is the ultimate example vision, action and communicating his faith.

We believe in the power of his teaching, of his resurrection, the power of grace and salvation. But we can behave as if we had made deals to soften what we believe in and to underestimate the power in Jesus.